Aerospace
structural analysis.
I'm Berkay Kuşkıra — Lead Structural Analysis Engineer at Turkish Aerospace Industries. I substantiate metallic and composite aircraft structures from concept layout through certification — static strength, stability, fatigue and damage tolerance — with a current focus on a next-generation fighter-jet programme.
Focus
01
Fatigue & Damage Tolerance
Slow-crack-growth and fail-safe substantiation of fracture- and durability-critical parts.
02
GFEM-Driven Sizing
Internal-load extraction, detailed sub-models and allowables feeding the global sizing loop.
03
Certification Reporting
Release-level stress reports — EASA CS-23 trainer to next-generation fighter structure.
04
AI-Assisted Tooling
ML surrogates, multi-objective optimisation and LLM-built automation for the stress workflow.
About
Across fighter-jet, eVTOL and trainer programmes — building, breaking and substantiating structures.
Lead Structural Analysis Engineer at Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) with 8+ years substantiating metallic and composite aerospace primary structure. Current scope spans AI-assisted method-and-tool development for the stress organisation and Fatigue & Damage Tolerance ownership on a fighter-jet programme. Track record includes EASA CS-23 certification on the Hürkuş trainer (forward fuselage, rudder), GFEM-driven sizing across fighter-jet primary structure, and preliminary landing-gear and e-VTOL structural studies. Authors release-level stress reports, drives slow-crack-growth and fail-safe assessments, and closes non-conformances across loads, design and test interfaces.
The discipline sits between equilibrium and history — between what a part can take and what it has been through. The pages here gather the work: portfolio, resume, and occasional notes on the things I learn along the way.
Writing
Recent notes from the stress office.
Jun 2026
When stiffness, not strength, kills the panel
Thin panels go unstable long before they run out of strength, and the linear eigenvalue load FE hands you is an optimistic upper bound, not an answer. Notes on eigenvalue versus post-buckling, stiffener pitch, boundary conditions, and imperfection knockdowns.
May 2026
Hello, again — re-launching kuskira.com
A short note on starting over with a simpler, faster portfolio site.
May 2026
Thermal stress, the load case people forget
Constrained thermal expansion makes real stress with no external load on the part. Why a free part sees nothing, what alpha-delta-T-E buys you as a sanity check, CTE mismatch in joints, and why you can't always just add it to the mechanical case.
Portfolio
Two areas of work.
01 · aerospace
Aerospace
Substantiation of metallic and composite aircraft primary structure — GFEM-driven sizing, fatigue and damage-tolerance assessment, certification stress reporting.
Explore →02 · solid mechanics
Solid Mechanics
Linear and non-linear stress analysis, topology optimisation, and academic research in solid mechanics — composite laminates, bolted joints, buckling stability.
Explore →Experience
A timeline.
From a graduate landing-gear engineer to leading the durability and damage tolerance team on a fighter jet — the path, in order.
Full resume-
Oct 2025 — Present · concurrent
Method & Tool Development Engineer
Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) · Ankara, Turkey
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Aug 2021 — Present
Fatigue & Damage Tolerance Engineer
Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) · Ankara, Turkey
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Sep 2017 — Aug 2021
Structural Analysis Engineer
Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) · Istanbul, Turkey
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Jul 2016 — Jun 2017
Project Student & Intern
TEI — TUSAŞ Engine Industries · Eskişehir, Turkey
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Feb 2018 — Jul 2022
M.Sc. in Solid Mechanics
Istanbul Technical University
Toolchain
Day-to-day engineering stack
- MSC Nastran
- Abaqus
- ANSYS Mechanical
- Altair HyperMesh
- MSC Patran
- CATIA V5
- Python
- pyNastran
- scikit-learn
- ML Surrogates
- Optimisation
- GFEM
- DaDT
- Slow Crack Growth
- CS-23
Get in touch
Have a structural challenge?
Always happy to talk fatigue, FEA correlations, certification and aeronautical structures — drop a line.